The use of remote video assistants is becoming prevalent in the financial institution/banking world, as well as other customer service environments, such as health care, retail, utilities, communications and the like. Remote video assistants are accessible through dedicated Automated Teller Assist (ATA) machines/devices, which may be located within a business, such as a financial institution/banking center or may be located at any other convenient location. Additionally, remote video assistants may be accessible via a user's/customer's device, such as a personal computer, laptop computer, touch pad device, mobile communication device, such as a smart phone, or the like.
In conventional remote video assistant applications, a user/customer identifies their needs, such as financial institution/banking needs (e.g., mortgage/loan, personal banking or the like) and is randomly provided a video assistant that specializes in the customer's financial institution/banking needs. This is in contrast to the live financial institution/banking center experience in which the user/customer can become familiar and comfortable with interacting with one or more of the banking center associates at the customer's frequently visited banking center. However, the random assignment of video assistants does not create a personalized experience for the customer nor does it insure that the customer is familiar with or has good rapport with the video assistant.
Additionally, due to the increasing use of user/customer assistance platforms, such as call centers, remote video assistance and the like, the demand often exceeds the quantity of available call center associates/agents, remote video assistants or the like. Typically, the customer/caller is placed on hold (i.e., placed in a call queue) to await the next available agent/remote video assistant or the like. As a means of informing the customer/user as to the approximate length of the hold time/wait period, the user/customer may be provided an estimated wait time, which is the estimated wait time for any agent/remote video assistant and may be based on the current quantity of available agents/remote video assistants, the quantity of callers/customers currently in a call queue and the average call/session time for all of the agents/remote video assistants.
Therefore, a need exists to develop systems, apparatus, computer program products, methods and the like that provide users with a personalized means for selecting video assistants prior to conducting a remote video assistant session. The desired systems and methodology should allow for the user to select from video assistants that the user is familiar with (i.e., a video assistant that the user has interacted with in the past). In addition, the desired systems and methodology should provide for remote video-assistant specific availability details, such as whether a remote video assistant is currently available (i.e., taking calls at this time) and the approximate wait time for that specific remote video assistant. Moreover, the an approximate wait time should reflect a real-time wait time that dynamically takes into account the time that the remote video assistant typically spends on a call/session, the time of the current call/session that the remote video assistant is participating in and how many calls the remote video assistant currently has in their queue. As such, the desired systems and methodologies should overcome obstacles presented in the remote video assistant environment and result in a user experience that is more closely aligned with a live banking center-type user experience.